{"id":1146,"date":"2018-10-10T10:18:48","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T23:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2018-10-10T10:18:48","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T23:18:48","slug":"the-road-less-travelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2018\/10\/10\/the-road-less-travelled\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road Less Travelled"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Barnett<\/h4>\n

A few weeks ago, my partner and I were in some government offices in the city. A woman walked into the lift we were occupying, took one look at my partner\u2019s chest and, sighing wistfully, said \u201cI really need to see you\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

I might as well have been invisible.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Rebecca trying to be noticed in the lift.<\/p><\/div>\n

Perhaps I should give you some more context. My partner was fresh from work and still wearing his AMT T-shirt with the words \u201cMassage Therapist\u201d proudly emblazoned above his right nipple. This woman\u2019s 30-second elevator speech centred around intermittent, niggling shoulder pain and a sudden, pressing need to book a massage. Just two little words on a T-shirt elicited a surprising host of emotions, personal reveals and, dare I say it – longing – for nurturing touch.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it bloody spiffing to be a massage therapist?<\/p>\n

I have been trying to think of other occupations that might elicit this kind of response in a lift but I am really struggling to find many. A therapy dog may well pip us at the post for the most appealing elevator companion but it\u2019s kinda hard to imagine a journalist or dentist or IT professional or\u00a0artisanal pencil sharpener<\/a> being greeted with the same enthusiasm and wistfulness.<\/p>\n

Cognitive Dissonance<\/a>\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h6>\n
\"\"

“I love massage. I love massage not.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Massage therapists seem to have a pretty complicated relationship with their chosen occupation. They love it; they\u2019re proud of the work they do; they get loads of satisfaction from helping people. Some massage therapists are even so enthusiastic about the power of massage that they ascribe all sorts of improbable powers to it. On the other hand, many of the exact same people also subscribe to the idea that massage therapists have a terrible reputation with the general public; that we\u2019re not \u201crecognised\u201d; that we\u2019re the healthcare equivalent of the dog that gets kicked.<\/p>\n

It only takes a few minutes inside any of the myriad social media forums supporting massage therapists before this weird cognitive dissonance reveals itself: we\u2019re immensely proud of what we do but we\u2019re also embarrassed and apologetic about the profession; we love massage but we need to distance ourselves from the word itself because it doesn\u2019t capture what we do and has bad connotations; our clients reckon that we\u2019re so much better than the physio\/chiro\/osteo\/insert-the-healthcare-practitioner-of-your-choice they saw last week but the physio\/chiro\/osteo\/healthcare-practitioner-of-your-choice has far more status than us.<\/p>\n

We sway wildly between hubris and self-recrimination, like a high wire artist working hard to maintain her centre and stop herself from plunging into the abyss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Groundhog Day<\/strong><\/h6>\n

\"\"The thing is, when we talk about not being recognised in the same way as other healthcare professions, we\u2019re mostly just talking about social capital. (There are some great definitions of social capital here<\/a>.) We\u2019re almost inevitably comparing ourselves to physiotherapists and the social capital they enjoy because they\u2019re our nearest cousins, having sprung from our massage therapy bosom about 130 years ago in a historical moment that is uncannily similar to where we are now.<\/p>\n

We seem pretty envious about the social capital that physiotherapists have enjoyed within the healthcare domain. But what we don\u2019t discuss anywhere near enough is the price that physiotherapists have paid over the last century and a bit to earn that social capital. Dave Nicholls has written extensively about how the modern physiotherapy profession made itself into obedient servants of the state and strategically subservient to the medical profession in order to become the established provider of orthodox physical therapy. In The End of Physiotherapy<\/a>, Nicholls also writes about the need for the physiotherapy profession to re-imagine itself or risk oblivion in the face of changing societal, political, economic and social pressures. I wish all massage therapists would read it. There are so many lessons in it for us.<\/p>\n

Try as I might, I find it really hard to imagine massage therapists becoming obedient servants of the state. I\u2019m not even remotely convinced that it\u2019s a useful or desirable thing to do, just for the sake of greater social capital. I genuinely believe that massage therapists are extremely well placed to become increasingly relevant, especially as the healthcare landscape makes a somewhat seismic retreat from biomedicalism. But now I am just mangling metaphors.<\/p>\n

We need to stop equating social capital with professional esteem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our clients already value us enormously and bring an extraordinary array of complex health issues into our clinics. I\u2019ve talked about this until I am blue in the face. For example, I talked about it here:<\/p>\n